Across the Blue Ridge #72- Lightnin’ Wells, one-man band

Across the Blue Ridge #72- Lightnin’ Wells, one-man band

Lightnin’ Wells regales the audience at Muddy Creek Music Hall with stories and songs from blues, old time, bluegrass, ragtime and jazz traditioins.

Paul Brown

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Mike “Lightnin’” Wells brings traditions together in his entertaining, informative and down-home one-man shows. His latest album, titled “O Lightnin’ Where Art Thou?”, displays his range as never before, as he plays and sings his way through songs from early country and bluegrass to blues, gospel and old time mountain music. Born in West Virginia and largely raised in North Carolina, Lightnin’ was smitten early by the famed WWVA Jamboree radio show out of Wheeling, West Virginia. When his family moved to the Chapel Hill, North Carolina area, he discovered a rich vein of piedmont blues and old time music as well. On this episode of Across the Blue Ridge, we hear selections from the new album, plus an interview and songs from his 2016 appearance at Muddy Creek Music Hall in Winston-Salem, NC. Also on the show, a selection of classic cuts from the three most significant bands in the early history of bluegrass music: Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys; The Stanley Brothers; and Flatt & Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys. There’s some great old time string band music as well from The Reed Island Rounders and The Camp Creek Boys.

Playlist

Stone's Rag
Leftwich & Higginbotham
The Lost Child

My Cabin In Caroline
Flatt & Scruggs
1947-59 Vol 1

The Rambler's Blues
Stanley Brothers
Earliest Recordings

I Wonder If You Feel The Way I Do
Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys
Mule Skinner Blues